Fallout: The Southeast Commonwealth
by Al Cole
Summary: A story taking place in the often not mentioned Southeast Commonwealth, narrated by an old raider, Heck. The story aims to span the course of Heck's youth and detail the world he grew up in.


Now, I don't know what they've been telling you about the wastes but chances are they ain't said a damn thing about the Southeast. Yeah, I'm sure I'm right. Even if I wasn't, you've probably never had the chance to hear it firsthand. In my sixty-one years I lived most of it down there, in that lawless hell hole I used to call home. You don't hear stories about it because either the people just ain't got the means of recording it down or… well, they never lived long down there in the first place. There never were many of those vaults down there, not that I knew of. I spent most of my life looking for one in particular, Vault 55. Now, you might be wondering what would some former raider like me ever have interest in a finding a vault. Surely because I was after some stash of weapons, technology, maybe some store of wealth? Nah, that was never my reasoning for it. I just wanted to see whether the old man was telling the truth or not.

I was born in a little settlement a couple days walk from the coast of what used to be smack in the middle of the Southeastern Commonwealth. The settlement was a place called Congaree. It was a thick forest, yeah, you heard me right. A forest , right out there in the Wastes. Well, not really the "Wastes" but right there in the middle of it all. Now, since you don't really know of it, let me come right out and say it, I grew up in a swamp. I guess you could say that I avoided most of the radiation growing up but Gramps always told me that drinking swamp water was better than what most were used to out there on the coast. When I was a young boy aged seven back in 2233, Gramps used to tell me stories about the coast. "Hecktor, be grateful for what you've got out here. There are some bad numbers out there." He said scratching one side of his white beard while swatting at a couple gnats. "What you mean bad numbers Gramps?" His one good eye opened wider as he tilted his head to the side, a sly grin emerged on his face. I had encouraged another tall tale, no doubt in that. "Heck, I ever tell you of the vaults?" he said while I paddled the boat further down the river. "No sir." I said struggling to push the paddles; they were getting stuck in the mudded river bottom. "Go ahead pull those in the boat, let me tell you about it. This is one that is going to require your full attention; I want you to remember it." He waved his hand toward the oars. I pulled them into the boat and we floated along for a ways. "Now, I know your daddy, God rest his soul, wasn't around for most of your life and I've got no telling what your momma' told you, but I wasn't always here Heck and you ain't like them." "Whatcha mean Gramps?" he sat up straight, adjusting his frail body "I didn't always live in Congaree, I came here and had your daddy with your grand-mama." "So, grand-mama was from Congaree?" I asked in my childlike stupor "If you wasn't from here, then where were you from Gramps?" "The Vaults…" his good eye filled with intensity and there was almost sacredness in his tone as he reached into his pocket pulling out a little metal pendant. It was dull and tarnished from it's obvious age, it was shaped like a bullseye and had three branches coming from each side. The old man tapped it with one of his fingers while holding it in the other hand. "This, this is the Vault-Tec logo boy!" He extended it to me and I grasped it within one of my hands, examining its high quality construction. "I was from the fifty fifth vault, down there at the Strand on the coast."

Gramps would go on for hours about how life was like in Vault 55. He said where he grew up they didn't have any other source of entertainment except telling stories and learning the odds of anything and everything they might get their hands on. In my youth, Gramps seemed like the smartest man on the planet to me, if there was something to be done he could do it and if he told you a story, he'd keep you on the edge of your seat with tales of irradiated monsters roaming just outside the limits of Congaree. As a kid I thought that if I so much as wandered outside of the forests that some mutant might snatch me up in a moment's notice, at least that's the urgency Gramps put into it. Momma always told me that Gramps was a nut, so when he ended up passing when I was about fifteen my memories of him got a little blemished. She said that Gramps had done the same thing to my dad, Hector as a kid. The reason my name is spelled with a "k" is real simple, my momma wanted to name me after my dad but wouldn't it hear it from Gramps when he said she couldn't spell. After he was gone she just told me every day that it was all just a bunch of stories. "There wasn't an ain't no vaults." I wasn't going to let her deter me though; I wanted to be an adventurer one day like Gramps. The other kids used to look at me with some kind of nobility when I told them I was from a vault dweller and showed them the pendant. They used to call me "Vault" and I took that nickname with a bunch of pride. Trust me, if you could hold any title other than some dirty kid in a swamp, you'd take it. It wasn't until I was eighteen that I finally left Congaree.

I left out of spite mostly, when you get told you ain't going to do something for long enough, you finally just up and do it. I didn't want to live in a damn forest for the entirety of my life. So, one night I just up and left. That's right, I left, didn't even have a gun. I had a chopping block knife on me for protection, yeah, it's a good thing one of those super mutants didn't find me then. I was a stupid kid. The first thing that I noticed when leaving Congaree was that it was its own world almost. I had grown up seeing green most of my life, didn't think it abnormal. Once I left the midlands, I saw that was different. The closer I got toward the coast the less green it started to get until; I was in the midst of a barren wasteland. I ran across some locals now and again, asking them about vaults, no one ever seemed to know about anything though. At least not until I met up with the SER, even though, I would have rather not come across them in those times.


End file.
